Dense Space

by Robert Harken

  Pheno blinked and looked at Ti. Now magenta, Ti looked away and mumbled, “I wish I were dead.”

  “What does purple mean?” asked Pheno.

  “Shut up,” said Ti. She tapped rapidly on her forearm screen. “Done. His device no longer transmits.”

  Pheno retied Ti’s arms. She avoided his gaze and flinched when his fingers touched her skin. By the time he finished she shown bright red instead of purple. He decided not to ask about red.

  “Your efforts are futile,” said Ambassador Amonin. “This abduction will fail.”

  “Shut it, slug face,” said Ti.

  “Seems to be working well so far,” said Pheno.

  Ambassador Amonin jiggled, which the translator interpreted as a mechanical “ha ha ha” laugh. “Fools. Every spaceport scans vessels on departure and arrival to prevent transfer of invasive species. Your heat signatures will alert the authorities to your hateful and violent theft of this vessel. The mass driver may put you in orbit, but Transit Control will shut down the acceleration lasers before this vessel gains escape velocity.”

  “Someone needs to silence that puss bag; if you won’t do it, I will. Cut me loose, Pheno.” Ti writhed in the cargo net without effect.

  “Ti, listen to me.” Pheno kneeled in front of her, which stilled her movement if not her breath. “Can you hack Transit Control?”

  “Of course, I can; I always intended to—I’m most definitely not going anywhere more of those things live.” Ti nodded toward the Ambassador. “When Transit figures out they’ve got a jacking in progress, though, they’ll physically shut power to the lasers. None of my hacks will restore the juice. We’ll drift.”

  Pheno frowned. “This ship has no engine?”

  “All spaceships, except battlecruisers, only equip weak lasers to operate the photon sails for acceleration and maneuvering outside gravitational fields. Stronger onboard lasers require too much energy. Even if we used solar light, we’d accelerate so slowly that any ship powered by Transit Control could run us down.”

  “How do you know all this stuff?” asked Pheno.

  “My dad told me,” said Ti.

  Pheno rubbed his face slowly. “Then—”

  “Men being running to us tasting anger.” Eddientis peered through the starboard portal.

  “Launch, Eddientis!” Pheno lunged for the co-pilot’s sphere.

  “You being unstrapped tastes bad.”

  Pheno slapped the green button. The ship lurched forward. Pheno stumbled backwards, flailing. He grabbed the edge of the co-pilot’s open sphere as his legs slipped out. Pheno had expected something slower and smoother, but “go” in space travel must mean “right now.” He pulled himself into and sealed the sphere as the overhead crane moving the craft reached the end of its tract and dropped the ship onto the mass driver’s loop. The ship floated for an instant on the magnetic field—just long enough for Pheno to think the worst might be over—then rocketed forward, slamming him into the back of the sphere. His head hit first followed by his neck and spine. The curved surface spread the impact along his back and crushed his breath. His legs splayed out awkwardly over his head.

  A rapidly growing whooshing noise drowned Ambassador Amonin’s mechanical “ha ha ha.”

  The ship arced around the mass driver loop. Pheno sloshed around the sphere a few times before the ship’s acceleration plastered him to the sphere’s interior. Don’t puke. Whatever happens, DO NOT throw up. It’s got nowhere to go. Pheno gulped against the heaves. Nowhere to go.

  The ship straightened, arced upward, and, with a muffled bang, flew out of the mass driver at a speed Pheno guessed would put them in orbit. Wind buffeted the craft heavily then subsided. Pheno’s arms floated in front of him. He had a strange sensation of being on nothing. Yes, he still sprawled inside the co-pilot’s sphere; but rather than pressed against the bottom, Pheno felt more adjacent to it. Small, perfectly spherical droplets of the mist billowing from the broken pipe surrounded him. I’m in space.

  Pheno pushed himself to the side of the sphere facing the port portals. He looked upon an immense number of stars lighting the void brighter than any Gressan rotation. Pheno opened the sphere and floated out with a stupid grin. Eddientis, tentacles snaking in all directions, joined him upside down.

  “I am tasting awesomeness of space,” said Eddientis, pushing off the cockpit ceiling to spin in place.

  Pheno swam in mid-air without moving forward. “This is so cool!”

  Ti sighed. “Hey astronuts, remember we’re fleeing our own executions here?”

  “And there’s the buzz kill,” said Pheno.

  “Like she tastes on top of things being trussed like bundle of dried seascrape.”

  “All right that’s it.” Ti began rabidly gnawing on her bindings.

  Pheno floated to Ti. “Relax, I’ll untie you.”

  “By the purity of the First One, I’ve been abducted by morons. I’ll never ingest my Amonin’s scorn for being absorbed by the dumbest of the lower lifeforms.” Ambassador Amonin’s translator sighed mechanically. It swiveled an eye toward the broken pipe. “Well, at least I’ll molder before you ransom me.”

  “Why, what is that stuff?” Pheno warily eyed the mist flowing from the broken pipe.

  “The fluid portion of my life support. You mouth breathers wouldn’t understand.”

  “Is it toxic?” asked Pheno.

  “As if I care about you,” said the Ambassador.

  “Help me fix this, Ti. Eddientis, hold the other end.” Pheno straightened the torn pipe ends.

  Ti pulled a coil of wire from her jacket. “We can tie it in place with this.”

  Pheno raised an eyebrow.

  Ti rolled her eyes. “What—like you never carry.”

  Pheno coughed.

  “Now we’ll need a sealant,” said Ti.

  They found some goo in a locker. “What do you think this is?” asked Pheno.

  Ti shrugged and slathered it on the pipe joins. The leak stopped.

  The ambassador seemed pleased by the repair, though Pheno couldn’t tell how he sensed this because the creature had no face, just a pair of eyeballs on top of short stalks attached to an oblong body that looked more like a barely contained plug of jelly than a sentient being. Pheno half-suspected he imagined its reaction.

  “I expected more from you, Ertryd,” said Ambassador Amonin.

  Eddientis’s tentacles froze. A large, glassy eye focused on the Ambassador.

  “You’re a higher lifeform like me,” said the Ambassador. “Consorting with these limited creatures on their inane plans limits your potential.”

  “Shut up, Puss Bag,” said Ti.

  “I know what you can become, Ertryd; I can help you. I’m your ally, not your enemy.”

  “Ignore him, Eddientis,” said Pheno.

  “I’m tasting no allegiance,” said Eddientis.

  “But we are allied closer than you know. Most of the galaxy relished the death of so many Ertryds when exoplanet M3326 collided with your home world. The Galactic Counsel placed bounties on the survivors. You, my Ertryd brother, now command a seven figure reward.”

  Pheno shook his head. “The Ambassador’s just trying to mess with you, Eddientis.”

  “You doubt my truth?” asked the Ambassador. “Did you witness the celebration on Gressa? All those oxygen addicts dancing and chanting in the square? I ingested no joy in the destruction of Ertryd. We Amonins mourned.

  “You taste my honesty even without contact. I become honesty when I tell, even by this crude means, that Ertryd vied with my kind for title of most despised species in Dense Space, though for different reasons. Chance placed Ertryds on a planet of the middle epoch, halfway through the queue of astronomical disasters predetermined by an excess of globular star clusters spinning too close. Amo, with its savory hotpots of amino acids and comfortably slick rocks, may never get hit. The others hated us because of our home. I guess to be precise; other species hated us because they failed to seize our wor
ld. Would-be conquerors had plenty of warnings. How many organisms had attempted Amonin genocide? Thirty-one hundred I think. Some Amonins believe our planet became the galactic capital because of our indomitable spirit, but I think the powerful wanted a place to live without fear of asteroids. Yet, they absorbed our world without acceptance.”

  “I think you’re misstating history,” said Pheno.

  “You taste falsehood? Bias? I see how the ambassadors stare. They call us parasites. Parasites! We appropriate genetic material. Parasites don’t refactor the host. I think they misunderstand the term. They claim we evolve by murdering. What do they intend when their warships enter orbit? The dumbest species carry the biggest guns.

  “Other worlds deserved every consequence of dealing with Ertryds. Hubris deludes a being into believing they will gain the better bargain from an animal with a brain in each of its eight tentacles. The end game may require generations before the deal’s consequences manifest, but the results will surface to the Ertryds’ advantage. Your species acquired technology inexpensively then unlocked its full potential—quantum assembly, fission-fusion exchanges, synthetic respiration—in feats exceeding the chagrined creator’s capability. Other species traded their prowess for minerals or serviles or sex, the Ertryds remained steadfast. No Ertryd armies sallied forth, leaking technology secrets in the messiness of war. They preserved the secrets of dark matter, so less worthy species called them arrogant and selfish. Those lifeforms grouse about a final insult when the fireball that used to be Ertryd intercepts two inhospitable planets as it ricochets toward the Sparse Region.”

  Ti moved forward. “What did you say?”

  “Ignore it; the Ambassador’s trying to mess with our heads—turn Eddientis against us,” said Pheno.

  “I and my Amonin brethren will admit that Ertryds frustrated instead of negotiated. Still, I mourn the loss of so many protein speakers. The galaxy has too few. The vibration talkers laugh at our slow discourse. They jeer with single concept words strung together like the feces of a corix, a pretense of something more but in the end just balls of shit. Ertryds told wonderful stories in a lone protein. Do you remember, Ertryd, the taste of a protein? Keep your sound waves. Give me a good smear of mucous.”

  “Ambassador tastes truth; nothing flows like proteins.”

  “You can feast upon knowing once more. Reach out, Ertryd. Reach out and touch me.” The Ambassador moved to the closed lid of his sphere.

  Eddientis’s tentacles drifted toward the Amonin.

  “No!” Pheno pushed off the bulkhead and knocked Eddientis away. “You must never touch, er, taste it. Amonin’s absorb genetic material on contact. It’ll steal your essence.”

  Ti rammed into the Ambassador’s sphere, sloshing him away from the door in the process. “What did you mean by ‘intercept two planets’?”

  After a moment of staring motionless at Ti, the Ambassador’s eyes circled each other in a manner that looked a lot like a taunt to Pheno. “Physics happened.”

  Ti caressed the Ambassador’s sphere. “Oh, you mean like when you sprinkle salt on a soft-bodied lifeform and it sucks all their juice out. What do you call that, Pheno, ostosis?”

  “Osmosis, but that’s chemistry, not physics,” said Pheno.

  The Ambassador shook with a mechanical “ha, ha, ha.”

  Ti covered her mouth and giggled. “Silly me, I always get confused about what’s toxic or not—clumsy too, like I spill stuff absolutely EVERYWHERE.” She stared at the Amonin. “Now, what about those two planets?”

  “That information is restricted. Diplomatic and military access only,” said the Ambassador.

  “Forget it, Ti. The Amonin’s just trying to psych you out,” said Pheno.

  “Maybe, but something weird is happening with Ertryd.” Ti pushed away from the Ambassador’s sphere. “Remember the impact stream? If this thing won’t dish, I say we find out for ourselves.”

  “What, go to Ertryd?” asked Pheno.

  Ti nodded.

  “You can’t be serious,” said Pheno.

  “There’s nothing there but a ball of molten rock and impact debris,” said Ambassador Amonin. “I assure you the Galactic Fleet already surveyed the site. You should take me to a civilized world to collect your ransom.”

  Ti shrugged. “Ertryd’s the last place anyone will expect us to go.”

  “I’ll give you that . . . Eddientis, are you up for the trip?” asked Pheno.

  “No, no, no! You imbeciles don’t understand. Take this ship anywhere close to Ertryd and shrapnel from the exoplanet will crush us.” The Ambassador wiggled mid-sphere to no effect.

  “I am tasting correctness of this path. They’re being gone; I taste this. Understanding flows from devastation,” said Eddientis.

  “We’ll deplete our food and starve!” said the Ambassador. “This is madness.”

  “Ti, I presume you can get Transit Control to send this ship to Ertryd then erase evidence of our flight path,” said Pheno.

  “They’ll think we went someplace wet and green,” Ti frowned, “but we still have the power down issue.”

  “I’ve got an idea; can you find the location of the laser controls?” asked Pheno.

  “Sure.” Ti retrieved schematics of Transit Control’s space station. “I’m guessing the shutoff switch is somewhere in here because it looks like the battery chamber.” She pointed to a large pod near the solar panels. “Or it could be between the batteries and the lasers. I’m not exactly sure what these electrical symbols mean.”

  Pheno studied the diagram. “How do I get in?”

  “What do you mean, ‘get in’?” asked Ti.

  “We being docking at Transit Control?” asked Eddientis.

  “No we, only me,” said Pheno.

  “No way; forget it Pheno. We stay together,” Ti.

  “Look, I’m the only trained fighter . . . and a servile. Nobody cares if I make it.”

  “I flow away. I taste no Ertryd’s left, so matters nothing,” said Eddientis.

  “You two are idiots,” said Ti, turning blue. “No one’s going. We stay here and find another way.”

  “Is this a hatch?” asked Pheno.

  Ti crossed her arms. “No.”

  “It looks like a hatch. Is this where supply ships dock?” asked Pheno.

  “Uh, uh.” Ti shook her head and snapped off the schematic display.

  “Fine, I’ll find a way in myself.” Pheno searched the storage bins near the airlock without success, but found a spacesuit near the escape pod. He held it up.

  Ti laughed.

  Pheno stuffed the small, armless, legless amonid spacesuit back into its locker.

  She’s really starting to bug me. With that thought, Pheno opened the escape pod, pulled himself in, and closed the hatch. A faint pounding on the door echoed Ti’s protest as he curled himself inside the pod’s sphere. He smiled at the noise. Yes, his plan—really a vague notion—probably was stupid, but the last place he wanted to be right now was on the other side of that airlock. He studied the controls projected onto the sphere’s surface—no green button—so he just started pressing controls. He found the light switch, a button for misting, and, on the fifth try, touched the obvious, large, red button to jettison.

  The escape pod shot free of the ship. A comms signal flashed. He thought about ignoring it; but if Ti and Eddientis followed him instead of setting an escape course, his plan would get them all captured. Now which of these is the answer key . . .

  “Pheno, come back here right now!” said Ti.

  “Nope, this is the only way out for you two. Set an escape course; I’ll keep the lasers on,” said Pheno.

  Eddientis broke in. “Pheno, a ship being launched from the surface. We must be gone.”

  “This is serious, Pheno,” said Ti. “They’ll kill you when the catch you. Get back on board. Please, we’ll find another way.”

  “I wish I knew what to say . . . I don’t. This is my choice; set your course out of here.” W
hile Pheno spoke, he found the thrusters and set the pod corkscrewing toward Transit Control.

  “Pheno!” cried Ti.

  “The ship from Gressa closes fast,” said Eddientis.

  “Make it happen, Eddientis,” said Pheno.

  “We float together again at Ertryd. Swim strong and free,” said Eddientis.

  “Until then.” Pheno closed the comm link. He hoped their pursuers hadn’t intercepted that exchange. Pheno wanted them to believe the Ambassador was escaping in the pod while its captors fled into the void.

  He peered through the sole portal on the escape pod. Transit Control’s space station grew larger at an alarming rate and spun with a nauseating swiftness. Pheno shoved off the sphere’s sides to spin counter to the pod’s rotation. Transit Control’s spinning slowed to a manageable rate. Pheno knew this was an illusion. He had personally countered the escape pod’s movement, but the craft still careened toward the space station at a deadly rate. Pheno looked for an operating manual.

  He found writing, presumably in Amonin, that he couldn’t read, so Pheno messed around with the thrusters using visual reckoning of his approach through the portal. The speed, pitch, and yaw readings, also in Amonin, from his control panel were useless. His button pushing seemed to be working because the ship slowed its approach and spin, then he realized this happened without him doing anything. In fact, nothing he tried changed the deceleration. Pheno stared at the Transit Control station. They must be controlling the ship somehow.

  He watched the approach. How many people must I kill? More than two? Does my life count in balancing wrong with right? I’m the killer, after all, and these people are innocents in my way. Pheno pressed both fists into his temples and curled into himself. He strangled a scream. This is too hard! I just want everything to go away. He breathed deeply and closed his eyes. Get a grip. Now. Pheno went limp, opened his eyes, and stared at the space station.

  When the hatch opens, I’ll race into wherever I docked and take out whoever confronts me because fighting in zero gravity’s gotta be just like combat on Gressa, right? Then . . . then I’ll race somewhere else and . . . and . . . and find the manual power override, which looks like . . . a switch-thingy—Pheno curled up again and held his head—this is insane. I have no idea what I’m doing.